India is in transition to a new order

In October last year the All-India Conference of Lawyers sponsored a convention in Delhi to launch a "national debate" on an appropriate form of government for India, presidential or otherwise. It was inaugurated by none less than Mrs Gandhi.

Later this month, the All-India Conference of Lawyers is joining the Maharashtra Chief Minister, A.R. Antulay in hosting a conference of "intelligentsia" in Bombay to discuss the threat to national security from the supply of American arms to Pakistan.

According to a news report, the conference will also consider the situation arising out of the politics of street agitations and demonstrations organised by opposition parties, and ways and means of strengthening national solidarity in order to face these many dangerous challenges.

Some weeks ago Antulay got together a group of businessmen, trade unionists, educationists, jurists, retired administrators, media persons and others over dinner and is said to have pressed before this sounding-board the view that war with Pakistan was inevitable before long.

And that the country should therefore rally round its accredited leader, Mrs Gandhi, at this time of national peril. The theme for the Bombay convention has been set: Follow The Leader. This in fact was what the earlier Delhi convention was also about.

Mrs Gandhi has over the years adopted an increasingly presidential style of government, unrestrained by the checks and balances that would go with any formal model outside the authoritarian mode. The trend continues. Resort to ordinance raj is reducing Parliament to a ratifying body.

The strategems the Government has adopted in appointing, confirming and transferring judges, and the kinds of remarks high functionaries of the ruling party have made about them, betrays a growing impatience with an independent judiciary.

The manner in which the Government has "rejected" the Maruti Commission Report, on grounds that will not stand a moment's scrutiny, shows contempt for the judicial process. (As the psychoanalyst knows, only a guilty mind would have sought such rejection) The act, therefore, vindicates the Report.

Anything other than the captive media has been reviled, threatened and even assaulted, the Election Commission has incurred the displeasure of the powers that be and the Cabinet has ceased to have any real role. The police and intelligence agencies have been perverted, and the administration remains deeply demoralised.

Mrs Gandhi: arrogating power in a climate of fear

Centre-State Relations: Recent events confirm the growing personalisation of power as institutions and conventions continue to be undermined. The sly move to transfer or retire the Governor of West Bengal, T. N. Singh, a Janata, appointee - possibly timed to coincide with a spell of President's rule before that state goes to the polls next April - marks another bid to reduce this office to a nullity.

A governor is a head of state whose powers and discretion are not to be used at the bidding of the prime minister. President's rule is an emergency situation: a pliant and partisan governor responding to dictates from a central government at war with a particular state administration would outrage the federal principle. The late night coup against the then Tamil Nadu Governor Prabhudas Patwari, some time ago, is an extra-constitutional precedent that does not bear repetition.

A more explicit threat to the federal concept comes from Mrs Gandhi's extraordinary inspection visits to several states to "evaluate" their performance. A photograph of the July "Bhopal Durbar" showed the prime minister seated behind the chief minister's desk in the secretariat, confronting local ministers and officials, while the wretched "yes Madam, no Madam, thank you Madam" chief minister sat behind Mrs Gandhi trying to look important.

The prime minister had a retinue of central officials trailing her and also addressed secretariat employees. The obvious impropriety of this whole series of exercises in terms of centre-state relations must be apparent to all, other than those who set no store by such niceties.

Nothing could be more galling and destructive of the authority of the chief minister and his colleagues-and, at a different level, of the chief secretary and the other ranking officials of the state governments- than to dramatise the message so that everybody should look to the super-secretariat in Delhi where ultimate administrative wisdom and political power reside.

There are established channels for consultation such as the National Development Council and ministerial conferences to review plans, priorities, and specific programmes and sectors. The Planning Commission and its advisers conduct similar exercises. The durbars Mrs Gandhi has embarked upon, by-passing these mechanisms, are a display of raw power.

The pretensions to evaluation would be taken more seriously if the Centre's own performance had not been so abysmal or mediocre in many areas. Moreover, how can Congress(I) governments perform when faction is pitted against faction, "loyalty" counts for more than competence, and administrations have been pulverised by periodic punitive transfers resulting in a very high turnover of officials that make it impossible for anyone to function.

A Draconian Measure: The Essential Services Maintenance Ordinance banning strikes (and, prospectively, lock-outs) constitutes an assault not just on trade union association but the larger right of protest. Anyone inciting or supporting a strike can be arrested on mere suspicion by any policeman without warrant.

This draconian measure is a political catch-all. It is undoubtedly true that certain parts of the country have been witness to and victims of irresponsible and anti-social trade unionism attended by violence, sabotage, theft and blackmail. It is, however, possible to deal with this problem without resort to the blanket powers that have been taken.

On the other hand, dedicated trade unionism with a strong social element is not always liked and sometimes sought to be broken (with the connivance of decadent union interests) as illustrated by the hardships and indignities recently suffered by the Chhatisgarh Mines Shramik Sangathan and its leader, Shankar Guha Niyogi.

With industrial unrest well below the levels it had touched last year, the latest ordinance is explained by the fact that the Government possibly intends to freeze, pare or defer some or all the forthcoming dearness allowance increments, bonus and industrial wage revisions through compulsory deposits or bond issues.

While such measures may be necessary up to a point to combat inflation, they will not be widely regarded as legitimate unless other measures are taken to curb the parallel black money economy, discourage ostentatious consumption, ensure fairer distribution, and show greater energy and efficiency in managing the economy and reining rising prices.

As disturbing as these aberrant tendencies is the whipping up of a war hysteria Mrs Gandhi spoke of the danger of war hovering around India and the region while addressing her party MPs on December 23, 1980.

Four months later, in April, the prime minister told the parliamentary consultative committee on atomic energy that US arms aid to Pakistan had started a drift towards war. On July 12, unnamed "defence analysts'" warned the nation that Pakistan had completed a massive military buildup with 350,000 men backed by armour and artillery poised along the Indian border.

Such scare stories have been orchestrated at various levels and embarrassed officials have occasionally had to issue clarificatory denials to allay panic. That India and Pakistan should get locked in a wholly avoidable arms race represents a tragic failure of Indian diplomacy.

Even though American strategic intentions in West and South Asia are suspect, there is danger of a false Indian response aggravating rather than cooling the situation.

Alleged Threat: An arms race, further fuelled by Pakistan's alleged nuclear threat, could soon develop a life and momentum of its own, take over the direction of foreign policy and distort domestic priorities.

It could put India on the slippery slope of militarisation, with even larger appropriations and resources being diverted to arms purchases and the development of related infrastructures. This would not only preempt development and weaken the focus on anti-poverty programmes but would inevitably exert a gravitational pull towards greater centralisation of authority and planning as against the clear, objective need for greater decentralisation and participation within the system.

There is an insidiously growing united front crying wolf: those wanting the country to acquire more arms to maintain deterrent superiority over Pakistan; advocates of the Bomb; the anti-American and Afghanistan-is-different lobby; a few honest-to-goodness old-fashioned chauvinists; some who find it expedient to divert popular attention away from problems and scandals at home; disciplinarians who would enforce "stability", "law and order" and a no-nonsense climate conducive to production and investment; rally-round-the-leader cohorts; and those who might have an interest in defence contracts which, it so happens, are negotiated away from prying eyes under a blanket of security. In any event, "patriotism" demands that security perceptions and defence expenditure are not questioned.

The real problems and priorities of India are very different from those being prescribed. There is neither need for centralisation, nor militarisation, nor "discipline" which is blood brother to both. These are just so many red herrings trailed along by little men.

The creation of a psychology of total defence preparedness in the face of an external emergency can be expected to reinforce tendencies favouring "strong" government, more centralisation, and the "presidential" style. Efforts might be made to institutionalise such a regime once the existing checks and balances have disappeared.

To the triad of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen who have combined to create and run the "parallel state", would then be added a segment of brass hats-drawn into the partnership by growing militarisation and the increasing role of military aid to civil power as deteriorating conditions responding to irrelevant priorities compel pacification of a restive population.

The elite would rule, while those below the bread line, the undeserving poor, would receive their desserts. Evidence of this is already there in Antulay's edict about clearing the pavements of Bombay and dumping the poor nowhere in "Bharat" so that "India" remains a congenial enclave to live in.

There is even talk of work permits for entering Bombay - a sentiment heard during the Emergency when the beggars of Bombay were rounded up and put into camps near Thane, and beggars in Uttar Pradesh were sterilised because they were poor. Why is there no housing for the poor while affluent south Bombay continues to grow out on to the sea on foundations of black money?

The real problems and priorities of India are very different from those being prescribed. There is neither need for centralisation, nor militarisation, nor "discipline" which is blood-brother to both. These are just so many large red herrings trailed along by little men. India is in transition to a new order. Let it not be hijacked en route.

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